Central to DataTracker 3.0 is its ability to load greater amounts of information, in greater detail, into data marts, and also provide more frequent tabular updates of that data. This becomes crucial when users want to keep track of highly granular product life-cycle information. Even as large amounts of data get loaded into a data mart, DataTracker 3.0 can automatically and incrementally rebuild calculation tables. Many competing products must recalculate data tables less frequently, often overnight, a lengthy process that can interrupt the data-loading process, says John Hughes, VP of sales and marketing at Silvon (Westmont, Ill.).

“Users want to load larger amounts of atomic-level data, described not only by individual SKU or product line, but even by specific sales outlets on a specific day, without having to rebuild their tables and other internal constructs,” Hughes says. “DataTracker is a hybrid OLAP system that can load large amounts of detailed data and update all summarizations on the fly, as opposed to loading, then recalculating, then updating those summarizations.”

The bottom line, Hughes says, is that compared to competing products and even previous versions of DataTracker, users of the new release can keep closer tabs on product sales patterns in a timelier fashion.

DataTracker users in the manufacturing, distribution and retail industries can post hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, Hughes continues, and the application’s ability to summarize very detailed product data is a key selling point.

Users in the retail market, for example, appreciate DataTracker’s finesse at handling information about individual products, in addition to the application’s high-level business analysis features, according to Dan Moran, VP of development for analytic solutions at JDA Software Group Inc. (Phoenix). The company’s Retail IDEAS software, built around DataTracker, lets users manage and analyze many performance measures at a variety of summary levels.

“The level of detail that DataTracker 3.0 offers really hits home for our retail customers,” Moran says. “The software lets users look at very sparse point-of-sale product information in real-time, and quickly update the data warehouse. DataTracker’s features help our customers examine business information about each product, all the way up to a macro-level, or overall organizational perspective.”

Hughes says that during 1999 the company plans to announce relationships with major enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendors who will integrate DataTracker into their applications, such as Acacia Technologies (Lisle, Ill.) has already done with the ClearView offering in its PRMS and KBM ERP packages.